Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1887-09-15
TRY THIS METHOD.
How to Have Straw stacked So That 70
Will Keep Well

How to Have Straw stacked So That 70
Will Keep Well
Straw will keep fully as well as
mixed hay, if it is stacked with as
much care. The trouble is, usually,
that too few and incompetent men are
placed on the strawstack, while the
more desirable places about the thresh-
ing machine are given to the more
careful workers. Straw will not keep
if merely piled up in an irregular pile
without thought or system. To make
good stack of the straw from twenty
or thirty loads of bundles. one foreman
and two to five helpers are needed.
Among the great mass of farmers in
grain sections the plan of changing
work. is quite generally adopted in
threshing. Every one has a dislike for
the strawstack. and very few men take
pride in building stack so it will
keep. If man gets reputation for
building good stacks every one wants
to 'change work" with him and he is
asked to stack straw. As there is hard
work. a great deal of dust, and little
juring their reputation in the art by
making one or two poor stacks for
men who try to impose on them. One
can see but very few well-built stacks,
even in many of the older farming sec
tons where nice straw has come to
possess a market value.
When it is possible, the farmer
should stack his own straw, or employ
some man to stack it for him who will
do it well. If hands are secured by
changing work, it is well for two to
agree to stack each others straw. In
any case. one man should be detailed
by the owner to stack the straw, and
should be provided with enough help
ers to enable him to do good job.
The foreman of the stack should lay
out the bottom so as to get as nearly
the proper size as possible. This is
often very hard to do at the start, es.
pecially when threshing from the
shock, and it requires practice to
Judge correctly. Old threshing-ma-
chine men often acquire good eye
for determining how large the stack
should be made, and they should be
consulted. If the foundation is made
too large, the stack will be fiat when it
as settled, and if made too small, the
stack is run SO high that part must
be showed off at one side, where it is
too often allowed to spoil. In build
ing large stacks, it is preferable to
make them quite long, rather than too
wide, to shed rain well. The foreman
should direct where the straw is to be
laid, and where the tramping is to be
done. In building the outside of the
stack. lie should stand at the outer end
of tie line of pitchers and place the
straw himself. The sides should be
run straight up to about One-half the
height the stack is to be when COM
plete, and then drawn in at an angle of
from forty-tive to sixty degrees.
The tramping should be done MAIN
ly in the center under the ridge of the
stack, as this part will support the
greatest weight. aud it is desirable to
have it settle less than the outside, so
as to run the water outward. Up to
the point where the topping-out is be-
gun, the surface should be kept level.
Before beginning to draw the sides in,
the center should be rounded up,
tramped thoroughly and kept in that
shape to the top. BY this method the
successive layers of straw are so placed
as to lap over each other like shingles,
and as the stack settles most around
the edges they remain in that position,
shedding the rain much better than if
the stack is kept level and tramped
the most around the edges. The stack
should be built up uniformly to tho
top and not topped out one end at a
time. A stack built by system and
plan will not settle down in places and
Jet the rain run into holes, making
rotten cores reaching to the ground. rs
:. is often found to be the case in straw.
piles.-Prairie Farmer.